3 Tips on How To Be Conscious

Hello everyone, welcome to Invisible World. My name is Sameera and I'm really glad that you've joined me on this journey. I really appreciate all the messages, all the feedback and all the interaction and the comments that we've had. And today what I'm going to share with you is How To Be Conscious and practically apply all of the themes and topics that I share in the post.

So the post that I recently released called “Be the change”, I was talking about speaking to people with empathy, speaking of people with compassion and actually connecting with people on a different level. I want to share with you some really practical and relevant advice on how the way you communicate with someone can actually positively impact them and also positively impact yourself as well.

So I want to start off by asking you a couple of questions. You can reflect on these as I speak or maybe you can write them down.

The first one is, can you think of a time when you said something and later on felt, I wish I never said that right!!?

We’ve all had those moments when you say something and then afterwards you think that I really wish, I never said that.

The second question that I want you to ask yourself is, has there ever been a time when you wanted to express something but actually you resisted, you restricted yourself from sharing that.

Just write these down or think about them.

One of my biggest tips is never reply when you're angry. Now I know that's tough when you're angry, you really want to react, you really want to respond but actually, we all know that a moment of patience in a moment of anger saves you a hundred moments of regret. We've all experienced that in our lives and that's exactly what we want to stop here.

The best way to do that is a five-step acronym it's called THINK.

The first thing you have to think about is the “T - is it TRUE?”.  Is what you're saying truthful based on fact and objective or is it actually based on a subjective opinion. This will actually help you decipher whether you want to use those words or not.

The next thing you need to think about is the “H - is it HELPFUL?”. Is what you're saying beneficial to the person, are they going to feel that what you're saying is digestible, easily applicable and actually practical and relevant to their situation.

The third thing you need to think about is “I – is it INSPIRING?”. Are they going to feel transformed by what you're saying, are they going to feel like they want to make a difference, or are they going to feel that they actually want to change their behaviour, change their habit and improve themselves? Is it inspiring? Ask yourself that question. 

The next thing you need to ask yourself is “N - is it NECESSARY?”. Funnily enough, we all believe that everything we have to say is necessary but in reality, we can actually let a lot of things go. And therefore we have to really think about this one, this is a really important point. Maybe that person can learn from their experience, maybe someone's mentioned it to them before, maybe they're already trying to tackle this change, really reflect on whether what you have to say is necessary.

The fifth and final point is “K - who KNOWS this person best?”. Are you the best place person to share this information or is there actually someone else who'll be able to influence them in a much better way.

If you apply these five principles at any given time, you will make your communication much more conscious. Visualize this acronym THINK and make yourself stop to think whenever you're challenged with a given situation.

Remember never reply when you're angry and if you are going to reply, do it with this acronym  

• ·         Is it true
• ·         Is it helpful
• ·         Is it inspiring
• ·         Is it necessary
• ·         Do you know that person best 

Figure that out first and make your communication conscious.

 

 

The second principle, in being the change and transforming our lives is actually, never make a promise when you're happy. Now I know that may sound counterintuitive or slightly strange. But actually when we're happy, when we're feeling positive, we have this tendency to over-promise or over-promise that we can over-deliver. And what that does is that it creates expectations that never existed before and we overcomplicate our lives.

The way to do this is actually to create more balance in the way we receive and respond to things going well and things going negatively. We have this thing that, when we have a negative experience we feel really down and depressed and when we have a positive experience, we are at the opposite end of the scale. We have to learn to build balance in our lives and become equipoise in both happiness and sadness. The reason is that both of them are interchangeable and both happen throughout the course of life.

 

The third and final principle for conscious communication to be the change is, never make a decision when you're sad. We all have this tendency to make big claims, and big decisions and say big things when we're feeling down and sad. You’ve done it before, I've done it before, and we’ve all been there.

How do we stop ourselves from doing this?

It’s actually developing an internal dialogue. So the next time you're feeling down and wanting to make a big decision, write down to yourself, why you believe that you made negative decisions in the past when you were in that position. Think about the negative consequences that you've created for yourself. So that next time your mind decides to want to make a decision when you're sad, you'll be able to remind yourself of how that's not worked for you before.

 

A lot of this requires a regulated lifestyle. It requires meditation and mindfulness and actually building up a stable clarity of mind. And so actually a lot of this will be affected by, how you spend the rest of your day, who you interact with, what you read and what you actually absorb throughout the day. I hope some of these tips have been useful and look forward to sharing a lot more blog posts as well.

Thanks so much for joining Invisible World.

 

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I really want you to get involved in this blog and this post. As we think out loud together about our minds in this world. So please join us.